All This Time (Sting song)#Charts

The lyrics provide a reference to the death of Sting's father, symbolized by the image of a young boy, Billy, who, at the death of his father, wishes to bury him at sea instead of going through the Catholic rites:

{{quote|"Two priests are at Billy's father's deathbed—he's been injured in a shipyard accident—and Billy doesn't want the ritual that's being served up, he wants to take his father and bury him at sea."|Sting|Q, 2/91

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Despite the dark lyrics, the uptempo tune of the song foils their macabre undertone:{{cite web|url=http://www.sting.com/discog/?v=so&a=1&id=89|title=Sting.com: Song details for All This Time: Artist Comments|access-date=28 September 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224001216/http://www.sting.com/discog/?v=so&a=1&id=89|archive-date=24 December 2008|url-status=dead}}

{{quote|"It's about the death of my father, so it's pretty dark as a record but on this song the words are foiled by this fairly jolly tune. That's something I like to do quite a lot, combine dark subject matter with up music. No, it's not based on a dream. The lyrics seem surreal, but they are all images I remembered from my home town: ferries, priests, shire horses. I grew up by the shipyards. I just wanted to escape. I suppose it was quite a surreal place, though. It is the landscape of my dreams"|Sting|Independent On Sunday, 11/94

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The imaginary character, Billy, is also referred to in the lyrics to the opening song on The Soul Cages, "Island Of Souls".{{cite web|url=http://www.sting.com/discog/?v=so&a=1&id=164|title=Sting.com: Song details for Island Of Souls: Lyrics|access-date=5 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302145051/http://www.sting.com/discog/?v=so&a=1&id=164|archive-date=2 March 2009|url-status=dead}}

The music video depicts the wry, black humour of the song and is set aboard a cruise ship that constantly tilts from side to side. It features Melanie Griffith as a manicurist and Sting's wife Trudie Styler dressed as a French maid, and recreates the overcrowded stateroom scene from the Marx Brothers' 1935 film A Night at the Opera. As Sting's stateroom slowly fills with people, the two priests mentioned in the lyrics emerge from a bathtub, to the terror of a boy who is using it at the time, and the antics on the ship prompt a man on a dock to abandon his effort to drown himself and come aboard instead.

The last verse is punctuated by a vaudeville performer attempting to do a dance routine while the spotlight keeps moving away from him; he finally gets fed up and storms off the stage. At the end of the video, when the priests enter the room, Sting throws his luggage out of the stateroom's porthole, jumps after it, and sinks slowly into the ocean as a lifebuoy is thrown toward him.

"All This Time" opened the set on The Soul Cages tour. After this, the song was not performed again until 2000 during the Brand New Day tour.{{cite web|url=http://www.sting.com/discog/?v=so&a=1&id=89|title=Sting.com: Song details for All This Time: Description|access-date=28 September 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224001216/http://www.sting.com/discog/?v=so&a=1&id=89|archive-date=24 December 2008|url-status=dead}} The song lent its name to the ...All This Time live album which was recorded in September 2001 at Sting's villa in Tuscany.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

• 7-inch and cassette single{{cite AV media notes|title=All This Time|others=Sting|year=1990|type=UK 7-inch single sleeve|publisher=A&M Records|id=AM 713}}{{cite AV media notes|title=All This Time|others=Sting|year=1990|type=UK cassette single sleeve|publisher=A&M Records|id=AMMC713}}

1. "All This Time"
2. "I Miss You Kate" (instrumental)

• 12-inch and CD single{{cite AV media notes|title=All This Time|others=Sting|year=1990|type=UK 12-inch single sleeve|publisher=A&M Records|id=AMY 713}}{{cite AV media notes|title=All This Time|others=Sting|year=1990|type=UK CD single liner notes|publisher=A&M Records|id=AMCD 713}}

1. "All This Time"
2. "I Miss You Kate" (instrumental)
3. "King of Pain" (live)

• Japanese maxi-CD single{{cite AV media notes|title=All This Time|others=Sting|year=1991|type=Japanese maxi-CD single liner notes|publisher=A&M Records|id=PCCY-10192}}

1. "All This Time" (edit)
2. "King of Pain" (live)
3. "We'll Be Together" (extended mix)
4. "Someone to Watch Over Me"
5. "I Miss You Kate"

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• List of European number-one airplay songs of the 1990s
• List of number-one mainstream rock hits (U.S.)
• List of number-one modern rock hits of 1991 (U.S.)
• List of RPM number-one singles of 1991

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Category:1990 singles

Category:1990 songs

Category:A&M Records singles

Category:RPM Top Singles number-one singles

Category:Song recordings produced by Hugh Padgham

Category:Songs written by Sting (musician)

Category:Sting (musician) songs